


You, Him, and Her

by samhaindancer



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, But so is your angst, But you should get it, Character names not actually used, F/M, First time writing 'reader' as character, I'm so sorry Nat, Love Triangles, Main Pairing Is Bucky/Reader, You're one of my fave's, angst on angst on angst, awful endings, happy endings, repetition as a stylistic choice, true love vs convenient love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-08-09 00:54:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7780534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samhaindancer/pseuds/samhaindancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a love triangle and there's hurt all around until it gets resolved. </p><p>Can be read as stand alones or all together.<br/>Chapter 1: "You" Your POV<br/>Chapter 2: "Him" Bucky's POV<br/>Chapter 3: "Her" Natasha's POV</p><p>*Each can be read as a stand alone story, or all together as three sides to the same story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You

**Author's Note:**

> Bucky has fallen for you and you fall for him too, despite the fact he's "with" Natasha.

**You**  

            He’s with Natasha, so you’re not quite sure why he keeps coming back to you.

            It’s nothing noticeably strange or inappropriate, not at first. Shy smiles as he opens up to more than just Steve and Natasha. He laughs at your jokes freely, engages in the banter between you and Sam, always siding with you. He doesn’t flinch away if your arm bumps his in the kitchen or if you both reach for the same simple black mug in the cupboard and your fingertips brush. But that’s only at first. You’re not exactly sure when these occasional smiles and accidental touches became more, but they have. When you enter a room his eyes seek yours, the blue filled with a secret light and the corners of his eyes crinkle. When you’re in the kitchen reaching for the coffee pot the touches are too clumsy from an ex-assassin to be accidents, and they linger just a little too long.

            He’s with Natasha, so you don’t quite read into these brief little moments.

            Yet you can’t help but notice that he knows more about you than you’ve shared with him. It’s little things at first, like when he hands you a coffee and it’s just the way you like; three fourths coffee, a fourth milk, and a swirl of honey. You’re trained to be ambidextrous, but when he hands you things—like your perfectly made coffee—he holds it out to your left hand, the hand you naturally favor. When you’re out in the field he points out the license plates that have three sets of the same number, somehow knowing you get a kick out of those little coincidences.

            He’s with Natasha, so you don’t assume he’s watching _you_ , just that he’s observant.

            It’s when the touches and glances become a little bolder that you start to think that maybe there’s something more. When you’re in the armory and he happens to stumble across you (so very often it’s not a coincidence anymore) he picks up his own weapon and sits next to you, silent, cleaning each part meticulously and appearing strangely at peace. When he sits next to you in debriefings or at dinner and his muscular thighs are spread apart and pressed against yours, knees knocking and body heat shared, he doesn’t move away. After a while, you don’t either.

            He’s with Natasha, so you know exactly why you’re carrying around a pit of guilt.

            But you swear it’s innocent. It’s innocent how he always seeks you out, even if he doesn’t have anything to say and just wants to sit next to you in the library while you read. You swear it’s innocent when you step off the quinjet post-mission and his hand is subconsciously on your back to guide you. When you’re reaching for something high up and he chuckles, stepping close behind you and his metal fingers graze that bare strip of skin at your waist as he grabs your favorite cereal for you. It’s innocent when your lengthy couch conversations that happen accidentally every weekend at two am transition _somehow_ into walks in the park and hours in corners of coffee shops. After all, he’s never _kissed_ you and you don’t _want_ him to, even if that one time walking through the park he’d seen you shiver and looped his own scarf around your neck and his eyes had fallen to your lips like a magnet drawn. Thinking about kissing him had been a natural thought progression, a mere slip.

            He’s with Natasha, and you know she’s not oblivious.

            She doesn’t say anything, and you don’t either, because you and her have never had much to say to each other. You’ve always worked well with the redhead on missions, admired her form in battle and her ability to remain professional despite her emotions. You spar together three times a week and motivate each other during work outs—well, you _used to_. You’re not sure who pulled away from who first or when you’d slipped into polite, professional mannerisms towards each other and nothing more. When she starts to appear a little frosty towards you, guilt turns into denial and justifications.

            He’s with Natasha, but its _just_ sex.

            He hasn’t said that explicitly, and neither has she, but they don’t need to. You know, just as well as the team does by now, that they’ve fallen into a pattern because it’s comfortable and _there_. So it’s just sex and whatever it is you and he have, it’s not wrong, it’s not cheating anyone out of anything. He rarely speaks of her and when he does it’s in passing, and never with the spark in his eyes he has when you’ve walked into a room. He doesn’t hold her hand and pretend things are different, that he doesn’t have a metal limb and essentially senior-citizen status, and you just know that, when it’s dark and quiet and his memories threaten to destroy him, he doesn’t bury his face in her hair so that her scent can lull him to peace, can ground that. Because he has that with _you._

            He’s with Natasha, but he’s never told her he loves her.

            He’s never told you that either, but you convince yourself, desperately on some days, easily on others, that he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t have to because what you have is beyond words, it’s beyond anything you’ve ever had. It takes one look from across the room, one brush of his fingertips against your cheek, and you just _know_. Nothing else matters, because what you have is beautiful and real and no one can take that away from you.

            He’s with Natasha, and its time you start wondering why.

            It’s been a year—how have twelve months of something so real ~~, yet so unsubstantial~~ —rolled by so quickly? He doesn’t hide how he looks at you, not from her, not from the team—but that’s all it is. Looks and touches; sometimes, when it’s late and you’re not thinking straight and he’s not next to you because he’s with her, you wonder if that’s all they are. Looks. Touches. Brushes of lips to skin like wind over sand, there one minute and gone the next. Are they manifestations of his feelings for you, or are they designs to keep you there, present, _his like a plaything._ But you’re not his, because you’ve never been his like she’s been, and she’s never been his like you are.

            He’s with Natasha, and sometimes you cry for both of you.

            Tears for her because you know that she knows she’s a physical remedy for the guilt and self-hatred that ails him. Tears for him because he’s been ripped apart and put back together so many times, little of the original is left. Tears for you because you’re selfish to want him all to yourself but too much of a coward to say it. You cry a lot for yourself, actually. Because you’re _not_ selfish, but you are a coward. You all are. You cry because you’re scared that if you say something, this delicate balance will come crumbling down and _that will be it_. Tears because you’re not sure if you’ve always doubted your self worth, or if it’s a byproduct of this toxic triangle you’re allowing to continue.

            He’s with Natasha, and you eventually make him choose.

            You don’t mean for it to happen. What you mean is for you to— _for once in your goddam life—_ choose yourself. So you let him go, you step back, and it’s almost instantaneous the change, how quickly everything snaps back into place. She’s in touch again, friendlier even, like she knows what you’ve done and she can breathe easy again. You don’t see much of him and when you do you're cordial but distant, and his bewilderment is quickly replaced by indifference, and just like that you know you’ve made the right choice, for you and for her. You were a fleeting fancy, a phase, and he’s accepted it’s over without a fight.

            He’s with Natasha, and you’re left alone to move on.


	2. Him

 

            You’re not his, but he wants you to be.

            He knows he shouldn’t. You shouldn’t even be a part of this world, but somehow you’ve stumbled across this and like the good soul you are, you never left. Every chance you had to walk away you rejected, and you’re so good sometimes it hurts to look at you, hurts to even be around you. But it’s a hurt that hurts so good it gives him a high, and he’s addicted to you faster than he can even process. Perhaps it’s because you’re everything he was and wanted to be. You’re an angel and maybe he used to be one too, but he fell like the Morning Star and to have you now would be to taint you. So he stays away.

            You’re not his, and he tries not to think about that.

            It’s easy to find distractions, but it’s difficult to find distractions that stick. The gym works, at first anyway, but it’s too common a ground. You’re there too, and watching beads of sweat running over your skin is extremely counterproductive. You’re in there, bettering yourself so that you can do good out there, and all he can think about is tracing those beads of sweat with his tongue and cataloguing each sounds you make just for him. It’s how he comes across _her_ , something familiar and comfortable and _there_ , and it’s how he distracts himself. She’s just as willing, and he’s comfortable in the knowledge that she’ll never look at him the way he craves you will. It’s safe and no one is hurt except him because no matter what, he’s left wanting. Wanting you.

            You’re not his, but he starts to slip.

            It doesn’t take long for him to break, and when he does he’s not the least bit surprised that it has happened. If anything he revels in it, because this is who he is, something dark and _not good_ , and this is just like him. Just like the Winter Solider, he takes what isn’t his to take. He’s not an animal about, he’s not the brute the Soldier is, and so he restrains himself. It’s unfair to use that word, particularly for instances that are subconscious, second nature to him like breathing. He can always feel when you’re in the room, but he looks up at you to double check anyway, and he’s rewarded by the sight of you every time. He’s never wrong, and no matter what you’re wearing, how done up or not you are, he’s never disappointed. He just falls a little harder. He realizes that he’s letting himself touch you, just barely-there touches he doubts you notice. So he lets touches linger longer, his eyes meet yours for longer. Wonders when you notice, what you think. If you think of him. You never seem to mind, you always smile back that soft, warm, (unconsciously) inviting smile. He doesn’t stop.

            You’re not his, and eventually she points this out.

            He doesn’t think much of it, because he doesn’t think she thinks much of it. Maybe it’s because he’s so caught up in you, but he can’t read her past knowing when she’s ready to fuck. It’s all they do and all they’ve ever done, so he doesn’t think to try for more. He doesn’t want more, and he hasn’t received any indication that she does, either. And yet when she comments casually on persistent gazes and touching of their teammate, of you, he denies that it means anything. He doesn’t think it matters to her, but to him it does, and admitting it out loud but knowing he’ll never have you will probably wreck him.

            You’re not his, but he’s content.

            He doesn’t think he’ll ever be happy unless he has you, but happiness has never been the goal. He doesn’t deserve that, barley deserves contentment, but it’s what he has every second he’s around you, even if it’s on a mission and you’re both getting shot at. He’s most content when he’s alone with you though, those moments tucked away in the armory, even if you don’t speak. When you’re in the library curled up next to him with a book, enjoying each other’s warmth. When you go for walks and you let him hold your hand even if you’re not his, both of you pretending it’s to ground him so he’s not overwhelmed by the common world he hasn’t been a part of for so long. When you naturally fall into step and leave the Tower for bad coffee and moodier lighting.

            You’re not his, but it starts to take its toll on him.

            The more he’s around you the less these simple things you do satisfy him. Like the drug that you are, he needs a bigger fix every time, and it’s starting to unsettle him, unsettle him how much he wants to kiss you, to please you, to completely devour you and make you his. He’s fearful of his own possessiveness and how it could translate at just the wrong moment and leave you hurt or worse. He starts to think that maybe you might feel a fraction of what he feels for you, and that’s why he never leaves her. She doesn’t stir up these feelings for him, and as intelligent, beautiful, and familiar as she is, she never once tests his control. So even if it isn’t as frequently as before, he warms her bed every once in a while and controls the urge to picture you underneath him instead.

            You’re not his, but you are his _something_.

            You used to be, anyway. He’s not quite sure how it happened, but it has. He blinked and you were gone. You still smile at him but they’re tight, forced smiles. You’re polite and you still work with him, but that’s what it all feels like: work. It feels like everything it never was, when before it was simple despite who he is and natural like it was meant to be. You’re fine without him and he’s trying to push away his selfishness and say something, _do something_ , but he won’t. Not for you, not for the one that means the most with him.

            You’re not his, but he’ll always wish you were.

 


	3. Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion to the affair between you, Bucky Barnes, and Natasha Romanoff

**Her**

           She never planned for him, but he happened anyway.

           She was aware of her reputation: beautiful but deadly, the sharp point of an intricate dagger, dedicated above all to her cause. The Fight. When she’d garnered the repute of agent before person, she wasn’t sure, but that she didn’t mind either. After all the pain and suffering she’d both inflicted and endured, it was what helped protect the very real, very fragile heart of a woman always only just a step or two out of reach of heart break. Because she was, at the end of it all, a woman, a human being with feelings like the rest of them, even if they were hidden much better than the average person could hide them. Then _he’d_ happened into her bed, a cold winter that burned her with his touch, and she remembered what it was like to _feel_ again. She continued it.

           She never planned for him, but she let him get closer anyway.

           It wasn’t something she consciously did, but she did it anyway and by the time she realized she didn’t want to stop. But she didn’t know _how_ to be close to him except tangled beneath the sheets in a flurry of thrusts and moans and sighs of pleasure and sweat and passionate kisses. She didn’t know the exact moment that their bodies coming together in such searing heat became something more than her escape from loneliness, and after it had she didn’t know how to communicate that feeling to him. She figured she didn’t need to, not when he kept coming back to her so desperately.

           She never planned for him, and so she should have been weary.

           He never sought her touch outside the comfort of her bed, and at first it didn’t bother her. It couldn’t, because he didn’t touch _anybody_. He didn’t touch her after intimacy either, but he did lay there on his back, his breathing the rhythm she’d fall asleep to. She’d imagine kisses pressed into her hair, and she wouldn’t know until later they were just that: imaginings. Outside of the haven of her bed he treated her no differently than he had before, no secret smiles or mischievous winks, and maybe that should have been a sign.

           She never planned for him, but she’d never planned on you, either.

           If you weren’t in the picture, maybe things would have gone differently. If you weren’t in the picture than he would have pressed those kisses into her hair and he would eye _her_ quietly from across the dinner table to meet eyes with his secret lover. They’d share in the thrill of their secret, of their affections. But you _were_ in the picture, and you commanded his attention like the moon affected tides. Impossible to ignore, steadfast. You didn’t know either, and she hoped and pled with a God she didn’t think would ever have mercy on her for you to never notice, for him to move on, for Him to let her have _this one thing please God please._

           She never planned for him, but if she had she’d have safeguarded her heart better.

           It didn’t last long, your obliviousness to him. And how could it not? He was beautiful in the way that only dark things are, and for all your good you were hopelessly drawn and caught. She knew, because the same had happened to her. And so she sat back and watched as you struggled to maintain your distance, and the more you kept away the bolder he grew, looks growing in intensity by day and touches lingering on you everywhere he never touched her. She brought it up, he denied it, and she didn’t press it. She didn’t know how to. You charmed him with something she couldn’t see, couldn’t understand, and he didn’t just fall for you. He hurled himself off a cliff after you.

           She never planned for him, and it _stung_.

           She tried to tell herself that she had him in her bed, that it meant something more to both of them because of that. That all the hushed conversations in darkened corners you two shared didn’t mean anything, because if he really wanted you, he’d make a move. But he never did, not like he did with her, and so she clung onto that thread of hope and ignorance. That thread of hope and ignorance couldn’t mend her heart for long, and each stitch slowly came torn undone with every hopelessly _gone_ smile he had for you. You somehow had him in a way that she never could, and she hated you for it, because you were good and pure and you could find that anywhere, but this was her _just maybe just this one in a lifetime shot_ at _it_.

            She never planned for him, but then one day it all got better.

            You realized you didn’t want him. That you didn’t feel the same. Maybe you got bored, maybe you met someone else. She didn’t care, because suddenly there were no walks no hushed conversation no lingering touches and no longing gazes. You were an island across an ocean he couldn’t hope to cross, and it was better.

            She never planned for him, but she’d learned and planned for the worst.

            You might have pulled away, but he hadn’t. He was lost like he’d lost a limb— _no even then he had not been so forlorn_ —lost like he was missing part of his very soul. He was quiet and now she hated you because you’d broken him again and were still keeping him from her. It hurt a little less because she’d made sure to take a few precautions, to build up a few of those walls back up again. It worked on most days, even if he rarely was in her bed and when he was he was quiet and there wasn’t that fire anymore, just two broken machines going through motions.

            She never planned on him, but she planned to stop it.

It never got that far, because after the bitter harsh dose of reality she forced herself to swallow that he would never look at her as more than a teammate, more than a temporary warm-body-fix-it (he’d never allowed her into _his_ bed, he’d never known how she took her coffee, he’d never once kissed her like he meant it) she went to him, to end it. It was too late. He’d ended it first, and now he’d never know her torment, her pain, her heart wasted on him.

            She’d never planned on him, and she’d never meant bear witness to your fruition.

            She entered the kitchen the same time you did, but you didn’t notice because you were fumbling with you phone. And, because you’d entered the kitchen, he didn’t notice her. He didn’t notice her face fall when he asked you where you were going dressed like _that_. You answered you were going on a date, and the look on his face told her it was over between them before she’d had the chance to end it. He stood and crossed over to you and captured your lips in a kiss so profound and so real she’ll only ever be able to dream of such a love. He pulled away and looked you in the eyes. He swore to you he was selfish—the knife twisting in her gut screamed proof that he was—and he begged you not to go. He never begged. But he begged you. He begged _for_ you. And you, you looked at him like a newborn looking at the world for the first time, like the world had shifted on its axis and right into place, so enraptured and enamored, and you kissed him.

            She’d never planned on him, and so she got her heart broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who read, who left kudos, and special thanks to those that reviewed this story! You guys really motivated me to post, despite this admittedly strange style I've been experimenting with! 
> 
> I've never taken requests before, but if anyone has any Bucky/OFC one-shot requests, I'd love to give them a shot! :)


	4. Author's Note

-I will be adding a separate but connected "fourth" part in which we see Natasha's resolution outside of Bucky/reader. It will be styalistically different from 'You, Him, Her', so I won't add it as another chapter, but rather as the Part II. Look for it this weekend!-


End file.
